Tales From a Gas-lit Graveyard

Description

Published in 2004 by Dover.

Assembled by an authority on vintage thrillers, these 17 Victorian-era stories of the macabre include works from around the world by both popular and lesser-known authors. Ambrose Bierce, Robert Barr, R. Murray Gilchrist, Mrs. H. H. Riddell, Richard Marsh, and Guy Boothby are among the more celebrated contributors to this collection — and the excellence of their tales is rivaled by rediscovered works by several long-neglected Gothic masters.

Hume Nisbet’s “The Haunted Station” unfolds amid an eerie setting in the Australian outback, while Bernard Capes’ stories center on a haunted prison cell and a green bottle with a soul trapped inside. Lady Dilke cautions against the hazards of seeking the solutions to life’s riddles, and Robert Barr’s “The Hour and the Man” demonstrates that revenge is not what it seems.

Discerning lovers of horror and suspense will take particular pleasure in the rarity of these tales, none of which have been reprinted since their original publication.

Editor’s Introduction – Hugh Lamb
The Haunted Station – Hume Nisbet
The Hour and the Man – Robert Barr
Nut Bush Farm – Mrs. J. H. Riddell (as Mrs. Riddell)
The Man Who Coined His Blood Into Gold – J. H. Pearce
The Shrine Of Death – Lady Dilke
The Black Veil – Lady Dilke
The Ways of Ghosts – Ambrose Bierce
The Fever Queen – Kate Prichard and Hesketh Prichard
The Permanent Stiletto – W. C. Morrow
The Houseboat – Richard Marsh
Dame Inowslad – R. Murray Gilchrist
The Mountain of Spirits – Uncredited
The Golden Bracelet – Uncredited
The Tyburn Ghost – The Countess of Munster
Remorseless Vengeance – Guy Boothby
The Green Bottle – Bernard Capes
An Eddy on the Floor – Bernard Capes

Trivia

This anthology is a new edition of the original Tales From a Gas-Lit Graveyard, published by W. H. Allen in 1979.

In 1980 Swedish publisher B. Wahlströms Bokindustri published Tales from a Gas-Lit Graveyard in two parts, under the titles Hemska Tankar and Blodiga fingrar.

Praise

“Hugh Lamb is an extraordinary editor of Victorian literature. He seems to have read every journal published in Great Britain from 1870 to 1910. We readers are especially fortunate that he is also prolific, and that Dover has published his books.

Tales from a Gas-Lit Graveyard is a book that you will want to bring with you on vacation, or if you have some time to yourself. It is a wonderful book to read at night, with a cup of coffee or tea to keep you company. The stories are uniformly good, with a few rising to the superb.“

Emmett Hoops
Goodreads Reviewer